Amazing arm pump with reverse curls
You don’t need synthol for arms to make your arms explode! This is the natural way to do it … and its a LOT safer! Reverse curls give you an arm pump like nothing else. Doing a few set of these at the end of your workout makes bending your arm enough to get your hand to get the toothbrush in your mouth a real challenge. I strongly suggest doing this exercise at the *end* of your arm workout otherwise your workout may be much shorter than anticipated.
Here are some important form elements of the reverse curl:
- use a light weight! Start with about 1/4 what you use for normal curls and only use more than this if you can do 6-8 good form reps. This exercise is way more difficult than one expects.
- Use an EZ-curl bar, much less stress on elbows and wrists
- Grab bar with palms facing floor
- Pin your elbows to your sides and insure they stay there the whole set
- Keep the torso motionless while doing this exercise. No rocking fore and aft, no arching backward, now swinging, no leaning forward. Motionless.
- Start with arms straight but not locked and slowly go up until your pumped arms wont allow any further upward motion
- Go slowly, 1-2s to get bar up and 1-2s to get the bar down
- Take it easy! The first time you do these, just do 2-3 light sets otherwise you will have crippling DOMS the next day. After a few weeks you can ramp up the weights.
If you have had tendonitis in your elbows in the past, don’t do this exercise. Anything where you are grasping weight with the palms down really aggravates elbow tendonitis.
Don’t be Pump-Focused
Although getting a pump is awesome, don’t fall into the trap of being a pump-chaser. The lack of a pump does NOT mean that your workout was a waste of time just as the lack of DOMS does not mean that your workout was a waste of time. Getting a pump and DOMS are two of many possible signals that you had a good workout, don’t worry about it if you don’t get it. Despite what many people think, the pump is a very short lived phenomena – less than an hour in my experience. Going to the gym before a date reinforces your self-confidence more than it improves your physique. Speaking of which, most people have a distorted view of how much bigger their arms are when pumped. Yes it *feels* like they are 2″ bigger and ready to burst thru your skin but in actuality they are usually just 1/4″ bigger, maybe 1/2″ tops if your arms are big to start with. Most people reporting more than this are cheating with the tape measure and doing a diagonal measurement which can easily make you “gain” an inch or two. When you measure your arm you have to measure perpendicular to the bone, not at a slant.